I’ve been rooting around in the columns, op-eds, and editorials of the last few days and have found it terribly difficult to come up with much more than a few, bare acorns. For example, here the editors of the Washington Post muse about the prospects for breaking the legislative lobjam that has rendered this Congress the least effective in enacting legislation of any in the last 150 years:
The roots of this election season’s discontent seem to lie not so much in the ebb and flow of events but instead in a spreading sense that national political institutions, beset with partisanship, no longer work well. In the Post-ABC poll, 60 percent said they do not trust Washington to do what is right. Some 53 percent say the federal government’s ability to deal with problems has gotten worse. In the CNN-ORC International poll, 74 percent of respondents said they were dissatisfied with the way the nation is being governed. These results, too, must be treated skeptically; voters blame politicians for gridlock but seldom acknowledge that elected representatives usually follow the wishes of their constituency.
For all of the whinging about the feckless Republican House, for my money there are not nearly enough complaints about Harry Reid’s Senate. Under Sen. Reid the Senate has transformed from the place where heated legislation goes to cool to where it goes to die. In order to avoid leaving fingerprints on legislation that could come back to haunt future Senate races, Sen. Reid has elected to end Senate deliberation by not bringing legislation to the floor—that is the enormous power of the Senate majority leader.
If the Republicans do manage to eke out a victory in the Senate we may have the opportunity to determine the source of the do-nothingness of our present do-nothing Congress.
“For all of the whinging about the feckless Republican House, for my money there are not nearly enough complaints about Harry Reid’s Senate. Under Sen. Reid the Senate has transformed from the place where heated legislation goes to cool to where it goes to die.”
Some 300-plus House-generated bills have died by the single hand of Harry Reid. Many of these bills were bipartisan — some with huge bipartisan sentiments behind them. But, apparently they either didn’t enhance the agenda of the WH or were at cross-hairs with it. Consequently, Reid, being a loyal subject to his party’s sitting president, squashed them before any debate or amendments could be openly considered by the full Senate body.
IMO, the Senate has become merely a sham of bipartisan, checks and balances type of governance, and has become one ruled purely by dictatorial, political rationale, while brazenly calling the “other guys” the Congressional Obstructionists. It’s a ludicrous claim. But, it’s worked so far in churning up public resentment for the mud puddle we call “Congress.”
I agree, however, that should the Senate change hands, giving Congressional leadership in both chambers to the republicans, it will test the sincerity and wisdom of the oppositional party to coalesce around a more productive, less polarizing legislative agenda. The proof will be in their performance.